


All Of Us Amazons

by psocoptera



Category: Huge
Genre: Ableism, Cancer, Gen, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-09
Updated: 2011-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera/pseuds/psocoptera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is either a meditation on the social construction of the female body, or else the one where Alistair feels up Chloe's breast.  (Don't worry, she isn't wearing it at the time.)  Written for the <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/abc_las/">ABC Network Last Author Standing</a> challenge prompt "[character] gets cancer".</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Of Us Amazons

Chloe isn't really surprised when, after she lets everyone know her scan came back clean, her sister shows up on her doorstep. It's not a shocker that Alyssa comes bearing roses (red and yellow, Chloe was sick of pink within a week of her diagnosis) and champagne (also not pink). Chloe takes it in stride when they end up opening the bottle before lunch - Alyssa proposes the first toast, "fuck cancer", and it goes from there. And it's only to be expected that she ends up tipsy; the long abstinence of chemo has shot her tolerance all to hell.

And yet somehow, even knowing how she got here, she's astonished by the words coming out of her mouth.

"It's so ironic," she says to Alyssa, looking at her sideways from her present vantage point of horizontal on the couch. What is she _saying_? She's had the thought before, but she'd never meant to say it. "Like... you went this way, and I went that way..."

From this angle, she can't see the hint of cleavage showing in the V of her sister's shirt, but she can see the long dark hair tumbling down over her shoulders.

"And now we've traded places." She presses her lips together, but it's too late, now she _has_ to keep talking, to try to explain herself.

"I mean, look at this," Chloe says, reaching up to run a hand over the fuzz of her new hair. "Dad would have loved it if you'd cut your hair this short." She doesn't mention the other thing, the flatness of her chest under the special bra, but she finds her hand drifting to her front despite herself.

"Your hair is growing in really fast," Alyssa offers, "It's much thicker than when I was here last month. It'll be so cute soon." She's always been good at that, finding something comforting to say, but Chloe frowns.

"I'm too old for cute," she says. "I just don't want people to call me 'sir'."

"Has anyone?" Alyssa asks with sympathetic curiosity.

"No," she admits. "But I feel like everyone is wondering. Or they're staring and thinking 'oh poor _her_ , she must have _can-cer_ '." She mouths the last word, like it's too taboo to say.

"I could have an 'I kicked cancer's butt' t-shirt in the mail to you tonight," Alyssa says. "I could order it _right now_." She pulls out her phone and Chloe waves her off.

"I don't want people telling me I'm brave," she says. She sighs. "And I feel bad saying that when I know you've been called a lot worse."

Alyssa slips off the armchair and comes over to lean against the couch. She takes Chloe's hand and squeezes it.

"It's really okay," she says. "Listen. Mom told me once, right after I went full-time, that people used to think she couldn't possibly be our bio mom."

"Because of her wheelchair?" Chloe says, blinking. "That's stupid. She never told me that."

Alyssa shrugs. "I think she didn't want us to worry about it," she says. "Anyways, she told me that whatever people assumed about her, that was their limitation, not hers. She always knew who she was, and whatever people thought they saw, that was their problem. She said if I could do that, I'd be fine, and she would have told you the same thing." She's teared up, and Chloe has too. Damn she misses Mom.

"Besides," Alyssa says, "Once your hair grows out, you really won't be able to tell. Take it from an expert." She's sniffling a little, but she seems determined to lighten the mood; she waves her hands in the classic hourglass-figure gesture, and waggles her eyebrows until Chloe cracks a grin.

"Really?" she says, and, on an impulse, sticks her hand down her shirt and fishes around in her bra until she finds one of the pockets. She yanks out the breast form and hands it to her sister. "What d'ya think of that?"

Alyssa takes it and hefts it appreciatively. "These are great!" she says. "What are they, silicone? I used to use, like, rice in pantyhose. Sort of crunchy."

Chloe laughs. "I was so mad they had to take both of mine," she admits, "But with these they're perfectly matched now! God knows they never were before."

Alyssa cups her own breasts, sizing them up. "Haha," she hoots, "I think I'm jealous!"

Chloe is practically crying, she's laughing so hard. "I wonder if I'm better at archery now?" she asks. "You know, the Amazons used to... chop chop... so they could shoot..." She makes axe motions near the side where she took out the falsie, and then pantomimes drawing a bow. "I was always so terrible when we did it at camp."

"Oh man," Alyssa says, shaking her head. "I hate to crush your dream here, but I think I was actually worse than you were, and that was way before I started hormones."

"Alistair," Chloe says suddenly. She doesn't say it very often any more - she'd _practiced_ not saying it, once Alyssa had finally settled on a name. She's had a sister longer than she ever had a brother. But it's still true that, a long time ago, her twin had coveted her long hair and feminine curves. And now they were gone, and her twin remained, like one of those famous classical statues that was a copy of something even older.

But that's not right either: Alyssa had never wanted to be her, only to be herself.

"I'm so glad I have a sister," she tells Alyssa. "I couldn't have made it through this without you."

"You would have," Alyssa tells her, petting her fuzzy head. "Delgado women are tough."

"We are," Chloe says, and closes her eyes. She doesn't need to tell Alyssa that she knows that Alyssa could make it without _her_ , too, if things had gone differently. It's enough to be glad, so glad, that neither of them has to.


End file.
